In response to Rep. Todd Akin's recent, insensitive comment that "at the heart of liberalism is a hatred for God," a group of clergy from Akin's district visited his office today. In light of his failed attempts to justify his statement yesterday, the group of faith leaders sought a real apology from their Congressman for the disrespect his remarks showed towards their religious commitments. Instead, the Congressman sent a staff person to meet the group, while refusing to address the substance of his offensive remarks.

Bishop E.W. Jackson is a fringe Religious Right activist, the sort who pals around with the likes of Rick Scarborough and Janet Porter while likening Democrats to slaveholders, calling them the "coalition of the godless," and making it his mission to get African Americans to leave the Democratic Party.

He is also running for the open Senate seat from Virginia ... and is currently out on the campaign trail attacking President Obama for loving Islam more than he loves America and claiming it is a "joke" to even consider Obama to be a Christian:

“For every battle weary pro-lifer who didn't see how children were going to be protected in our lifetime, come see what God is doing in Ohio. Protection for babies with beating hearts is within reach for the first time since Roe stripped their rights away. I have never been more hopeful for restoring protection to babies with beating hearts than I am right now,” declared Janet (Folger) Porter, president of Ohio-based Faith2Action and a former legislative director for Ohio Right to Life.

In meetings with bill supporters, several of the state senators have expressed interest in serving as a sponsor or co-sponsor for the bill.

The Family Research Council says that passage of marriage equality in New York was the result of "enormous political coercion [that] resulted in a profound failure of moral courage in the New York Senate."

The National Organization for Marriage is pledging $2 million to defeat the NY Republicans who voted for the marriage equality bill.

Missouri congressman and Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin joined Family Research Council president Tony Perkins to discuss their shared outrage at NBC for omitting the phrase “under God” from a clip of the Pledge of Allegiance in its coverage of the US Open this week. Akin told Perkins that the reason NBC removed “under God” was because it is a liberal news outlet and “at the heart of liberalism really is a hatred for God.” The Republican congressman went on to tell Perkins that NBC is trying to “tear the heart out of our country.”

Akin: This was something that was done systematically, it was done intentionally, and is tremendously corrosive in terms of all of the values and everything that’s made America unique and such a special nation.

Perkins: Why would NBC do this?

Akin: Well, I think NBC has a long record of being very liberal and at the heart of liberalism really is a hatred for God and a belief that government should replace God. And so they’ve had a long history of not being at all favorable toward many of things that have been such a blessing to our country.

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Akin: This is a systematic effort to try to separate our faith and God, which is a source in our belief in individual liberties, from our country. And when you do that you tear the heart out of our country.

Pastor Joseph Mattera is one of the most outspoken opponents of marriage equality legislation in New York, and has condemned gays and lesbians for, among other things, their supposed ties to Nazism and lack of concern for the poor. Reacting to dueling rallies in Albany between the bill’s supporters and detractors, Mattera blasted religious leaders who support marriage equality and cast doubt on their religiosity. He even criticized one “supposed rabbi” for wearing “a rainbow Yakama [sic].”

In anticipation of the state Senate's vote, various groups held rallies Monday -- one side requesting the "separation of church and state," while the other chanted, "God says no!" Joseph Mattera, overseeing bishop of Resurrection Church in New York, tells OneNewsNow many of those who support same-sex marriage were irreverent and antagonistic toward the Christian faith.

"The other side was very belligerent. There were ministers, there were people dressed in Catholic garb, and there were supposed rabbis -- at least one with a rainbow Yakama," Bishop Mattera accounts. "So they tried to bring out so-called 'clergy' who were in favor of what they call 'marriage equality.'"

While negotiations continue in the New York State Senate over a marriage equality bill that has already passed the Assembly, the National Organization for Marriage has declared victory. In a post on National Review Online that has since been removed and replaced, Thomas Peters of NOM congratulated his group and other anti-gay activists for toppling the bill that hasn’t even reached the floor for a vote yet:

Lauding former New York Giant David Tyree’s strong criticism of a pending New York marriage equality bill, Janie Cheaney of the ultraconservative WORLD Magazine dubbed supporters of the legislation “forces of anarchy.” According to Cheaney, passing a bill allowing gay couples to marry will only help a “minuscule number of people” and will lead to the “undefining of the family.” Cheaney writes:

The minuscule number of people who stand to directly benefit from such legislation suggests further that it’s not about marriage at all—it’s about breaking down all barriers to consenting adults living exactly how they please, with dissenting voices confined to the margins.

Last week, former New York Giants wide receiver David Tyree stated his opposition to Cuomo’s bill in a video interview with the National Organization for Marriage. Tyree, best known for his legendary catch against the New England Patriots during Super Bowl XLII, is now catching heck. A Yahoo Sports headline read, “Super Bowl hero’s shocking same-sex marriage comments.” Shocking? Tyree said, “The moment we have [same sex marriage], if you trace back even to other cultures, other countries, that will be the moment where our society . . . loses its grip with what’s right. Marriage is one of those things that is the backbone of society.” He predicted anarchy otherwise, a fighting word if internet reaction to his interview is to be taken seriously.

And it should. We’re in a bare-knuckle fight with forces of anarchy, whether they know it or not. They think they’re about redefining the family, but it actually goes a step further: This is about undefining the family. The family becomes whatever they say it is, on any given day or legislative session. Kudos to the Republicans of the New York Senate (and one lone Democrat), and kudos to David Tyree for resisting the push.

The topic of today's episode of Liberty Counsel's Faith and Freedom Radio program was "How Should Christians React To Rep. Weiner Twitter Scandal?" and Matt Barber and Deryl Edwards used it as an opportunity to comment on the "hypocrisy" of the left because, they asserted, Republican members of Congress who get caught in a scandal get run out of town on a rail by conservatives:

Oh, I see ... just like Republicans and the Religious Right didn't do with either Senator David Vitter and Senator John Ensign?

In fact, the last time I checked, Vitter was still sitting in the US Senate.

So when was it that Religious conservatives gathered around and told Vitter he needed to step down? Was it before or after self-proclaimed "values voter" leader Tony Perkins co-hosted a local town hall event with Vitter? Or maybe it was after Perkins invited Vitter on to his radio program to discuss the "ethical problems" of Kathleen Sebelius.

So maybe Barber can explain again the "hypocrisy" that is at work here.

Mat Staver of the ironically named Liberty Counsel has a new video up where he takes credit for the shameful filibuster of Goodwin Liu. That clears up so much.

Was it Mat Staver who "exposed" the "extremism" of this extremely qualified nominee? Was it Mat Staver who convinced every Republican senator but one to ignore Liu's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, his detailed written submissions, and his many articles, all of which disproved the lies being told about him? Was it Mat Staver whose keen legal arguments completely discredited conservative legal figures like Ken Starr, Clint Bolick, Richard Painter, and John Yoo, all of whom were part of the vast network of support Liu received from the nation's legal community across the ideological spectrum?

Yeah, right.

No, it was naked partisan politics at its worst and not Mat Staver that sank Goodwin Liu's nomination.

But the video does raise an interesting question: If Staver knows so much about Goodwin Liu, why does he repeatedly call him "Godwin"? Don't you think he would know the man's name after all of his exhaustive research and outreach to senators?

Linda Harvey, founder of the fringe anti-gay group Mission: America, not only condemns the LGBT community but condemns anyone who isn’t condemning them. Harvey is also the host of the Mission: America Radio show, and last week she spoke out against pro-tolerance education:

Sex Change Pushed on Children

Recently, I read an outstanding article on the website American Thinker. It’s called The Left’s Dirty Little Secret. It exposed what has been obvious for a long time, that liberal values in schools and in our culture are leading to widespread sexual abuse of children. The author talks about the culture of Berkley, CA, during the hippie days of the 60s, how unsupervised kids in the bohemian communal living arrangements were often neglected, and so were vulnerable to abuse by drop-in friends or sketchy relatives.

These values have been dragged out into the mainstream and called everything else but what they are. Planned Parenthood calls it choice. The Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network, along with their close allies in the teachers’ unions call it safety. Promoting explicit sex practices to kids, with the rationale that they have a “right” to these practices, is one of the biggest con-jobs going and it’s a pedophile’s dream.

I’m sure the adult who wants to prey on a minor, either heterosexually or homosexually, appreciates the schools, media, and liberal churches persuading the kids themselves that all this is okay, that early sex is normal, and that adults who try to teach restraint or delay are really bigots who are violating your rights.

Well, the lunacy is rapidly expanding to new territory. We’ve talked about this before, but the boundary of gender is being breeched quickly with the transgender issue. Recently, even liberal California wasn’t ready for where some goofy educators wanted to take their kids. In Oakland’s Redwood Heights Elementary School, an outside anti-bullying consultant taught special lessons advocating gender confusion. The presentations were from a group called Gender Spectrum, who was paid $1500 with a grant from the California Teachers’ Union. The male presenter told grade schoolers that “gender identity is a spectrum, where people can be girls, feel like girls, they feel like boys, they feel like both, or they can feel like neither.” All 350 students in the school were subjected to these lessons, which the principal claimed would make a more accepting and welcoming environment for students who don’t conform to gender norms.

No, actually, they have just planted disturbing and harmful doubts about themselves within the minds of little children. I think that what we’re dealing with are deviant adults working out their considerably weird issues through children. Many parents objected, according to Fox News, and three families kept their kids home.

This gender change agenda is everywhere. Have you noticed? It’s pushed on us by teachers, Hollywood, popular musicians, even a few political figures. Numerous incidents over the past decade involve teachers who begin dressing and acting, all of a sudden, as the opposite gender. Two years ago, Ohio came very close to passing a bill, House bill 176, which would have forced homosexual and gender-bending behavior on all work places in the state, including schools. It passed the Democrat-controlled House, but thankfully not the Ohio Senate.

Friends, we must be vigilant against such corruption of our culture. So we wonder why some children are desperately insecure? God never intended for them to be so. He designed us marvelously as male and female, and we should celebrate those lovely and interesting differences. When adults who should know better want to sell these disturbed ideas to impressionable children, it’s up to us to their rescue. We must commit to keeping sexual orientation and gender identity language out of local, state, and national policies. This just opens the door to sin, confusion, and heartbreak.

From FRC's latest prayer update: "Pray that efforts to stop the homosexualization of the U.S. military will prevail and that this ugly social experiment at the expense of our national security will be reversed."

Free Republic founder Jim Robinson has a message for his posters: "FR DOES NOT AND WILL NOT SUPPORT ABORTIONIST, GAY RIGHTS PUSHING BIG GOVERNMENT STATISTS FOR PRESIDENT!!"

Finally, the quote of the day from Gordon Klingenschmitt: "Homosexuals are pedophiles who abuse and rape children; which they must do to maintain their available pool of future sex partners."

Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed the House Armed Services Committee Authorization bill, which included three amendments designed to delay the repeal of the discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

With the Senate taking up the bill, Rep. Randy Forbes, along with Bishop Harry Jackson and a group of right-wing pastors, held a press conference to encourage the Senate to pass the pro-DADT amendments.

Attempting to seem semi-reasonable, Jackson began the conference by claiming that amendments intending to make the repeal of DADT more difficult and time-consuming weren’t about DADT itself, but instead about “clarity.”

That line of reasoning lasted all of 15 minutes. By the time Q&A rolled around, Jackson and the Religious Right figures that had joined him used all of the same tired arguments that have been used against DADT in the past. When asked if the repeal of DADT would hurt recruitment, Bishop John Neal claimed that he wasn’t sure, but what he was really worried about was the “close quarters” that soldiers have to share, and what would happen when there was “only one spigot” on the shower.

This again?

Multiple speakers claimed that “no one should be marginalized for their religious beliefs,” but they all seem to believe that marginalizing people for their sexual orientation is perfectly acceptable. One of the speakers, John Neil, went so far as to claim that the military discriminates all the time, by not allowing, for example, extraordinarily tall people to pilot cramped fighter jets. Because that’s exactly the same situation.

Despite their claims to be promoting the rights of chaplains, this group showed that their real goal was restricting the rights of the LGBT community, going so far as to assert that Martin Luther King Jr. would disapprove of same-sex marriage:

Jackson: There were members of his family who were for gay marriage, others were against. I know this: King basically spoke from two vantage points that he thought were very, very sacred within the American culture - one was the Bible and the other was the Constitution. And I think what we're dealing with here is that from a biblical perspective, King no doubt would have been with us biblically. And I think, again, the lines of what is exactly the right of an American to do, I've got a hard time believing that "the pursuit of happiness" crosses into some of these areas. So I think that King would be with us, as a preacher first.

Question: Just to clarify: you're saying Dr. King would be against gay marriage?

Jackson: Yes. Very specifically, yes. Because it's against what is clearly written in Scripture. And if you listen to any of his messages, that clarion call to scriptural accountability even to the point when his own house was firebombed and folks came up in Montgomery armed and ready to go fight folks, he said "no, no, no, we will turn the other cheek."

So there was not just a tacit biblical acceptance or kind of whitewashing, if I can use that phrase, certain kinds of behaviors and say this is Christian, this is not. I think there was an inherent commitment to those issues in our social culture.

Mario Diaz of Concerned Women for America claims that Liu is a “real danger to our freedoms” and Republicans must do everything possible to prevent his confirmation:

"To everything there is a season," says Ecclesiastes 3:1, and the time for Republican senators to fight on judicial nominations is now!

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) has filed cloture on the nomination of radical professor Goodwin Liu to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Simply put, Mr. Liu must never be confirmed to this lifetime appointment, and senators should use every tool available to make sure he is stopped.

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Those views help expose the real danger to our freedoms with this nomination: Mr. Liu's judicial philosophy. He believes those constitutional rights must be developed, because he believes the Constitution is a "living, breathing" document that the more enlightened judges (like him, presumably) should continue to mold.

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Liu's judicial philosophy cannot be more dangerous, since it could mean something different at any given point in time. Any senator who doesn't stand firmly against such a rogue nomination violates his oath to "support and defend the Constitution."

If all 53 Democratic senators follow the party line and vote for cloture, they will need to add seven Republican votes to prevail. The key to this vote are the 11 GOP senators who voted for cloture on Rhode Island district court nominee John McConnell earlier this month. They include Sens. Alexander, Brown, Chambliss, Collins, Graham, Isakson, Kirk, McCain, Murkowski, Snowe, and Thune.

Several of these GOP senators justified their vote for cloture by arguing that the President’s district court nominees deserve more deference or that McConnell did not quite meet the “extraordinary circumstances” threshold. The former argument is not available for appeals court nominee Liu. The latter argument, if applied to Liu, would logically require a GOP senator to answer the question “If Obama’s most radical nominee is not extreme enough to meet the extraordinary circumstances threshold, when would it ever be met?” If the answer is “never,” because the senator believes that judicial filibusters are never justified, that senator must then explain why Republicans are obliged to unilaterally disarm no matter how atrocious the nominee is.

Tom McClusky of the Family Research Council insisted that Republicans block an up-or-down vote:

Perhaps in Senator Reid’s fantasy world Goodwin Liu is a fantastic nominee. Most people agree that the nomination of Goodwin Liu is one of those rare instances constituting “extraordinary circumstances” where the U. S. Senate should reject this nominee as unsuitable for a lifetime appointment. “Extraordinary circumstances” is the standard agreed to by the bipartisan “Gang of 14” U.S. Senators in 2005 for opposing judicial nominations.

Even the Tea Party Nation is getting in the game with this alert from president Judson Phillips:

Goodwin Liu is a radical leftist. He is a professor at the University of California Berkeley. He maybe the most radical lawyer ever nominated for a federal appeals court.

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If the cloture vote fails, Liu’s nomination is dead again. This is why we need to take a few minutes today and call our senators to tell them to vote against cloture. Harry Reid needs to peel off seven Republicans in order for cloture to pass. That is of course, if all Democrats vote for cloture. Unfortunately, we are dealing with the GOP, so the possibility of losing seven votes is real.

In 2009, California declared Harvey Milk Day a state holiday on the slain civil rights leader’s birthday, May 22nd, despite vitriolicprotests from the Religious Right. Now, Jerry Cox of the Arkansas Family Council and the Family Council Action Committee is warning that by honoring Milk, children will be forced to cross-dress and have mock gay weddings, telling the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow that schools should instead spend more time honoring the Founding Fathers who “exemplified all the good in mankind in their life”:

Jerry Cox, president of the Family Council Action Committee in Little Rock, sees a double standard in public schools, as officials refuse to honor Christian leaders.

"On the other hand, if a person has left-leaning philosophies, a left-leaning theology, a left-leaning view of the world, then it seems that it's always in vogue to honor those people and to have a special holiday for them," Cox notes.

Children will be required to participate in exercises that honor Milk, which could include mock homosexual "weddings" and cross-dressing contests, as well as writing or reading activities. The pro-family leader decides that public schools are failing to promote good role models for students.

"What we ought to be doing is holding up the lives of people that were truly great, people like the Founding Fathers -- the ones who have exemplified all the good in mankind in their life," Cox contends.

Cox isn’t alone in claiming that a Harvey Milk Day would include mandatory cross-dressing, as Save California’s Randy Thomasson argued in 2009:

"The bill -- which will honor a sexual predator, a polygamous relationship advocate, and a public liar -- and extend a homosexual, bisexual, transsexual agenda as a role model to children to aspire to is going to the governor after a short stop on the [California] Senate floor," Thomasson explains.

If the bill is signed, Thomasson believes public schools and colleges would be pressured to honor Milk.

"It could mean gay-pride parades on campus, mock gay weddings, and cross-dressing exercises because these are all things that Harvey Milk believed in," he adds. "And to remember his life and values is to go with his sordid history, both publicly and privately, that are detailed in his biography."

senate Posts Archive

Lou Engle traveled to Columbus, Ohio last week to join Janet Porter, Wendy Wright, Jim Garlow, Bob McKeown, Dutch Sheets and other Religious Right leaders at Faith 2 Action’s rally promoting Porter’s Heartbeat Bill, which would criminalize abortion in the vast majority of cases. The legislation has passed the state House, but the Republican leadership in the Senate has been reluctant to hold a vote on the bill, which is so extreme and clearly unconstitutional that it’s even opposed by the Ohio Right to Life Society.
In a speech at the rally, Engle repeated his... MORE

This November a coalition of anti-Muslim and Religious Right groups are hosting “The Constitution or Sharia—Preserving Freedom Conference” in Nashville, Tennessee, dubbed “the first national conference on Sharia and the Islamization of America.” The location does not seem to be coincidental: the Tennessee legislature recently weighed a bill that would make it a felony to follow Sharia law and the town of Murfreesboro, just south of Nashville, has witnessed vicious anti-Muslim attacks and arson against a planned mosque. A lawsuit against the mosque declared that... MORE

While right now Janet Porter is focused on using spiritual warfare to persuade the Ohio State Senate to pass her anti-choice ‘Heartbeat bill,’ she continues to lead the Christian Zionist group ‘Israel: You’re Not Alone.’ Porter was able to bring together an impressive list of supporters including well known conservative leaders Mike Huckabee, James Dobson, Mat Staver, and Tim Wildmon, and during the group’s introductory press conference accused President Obama of carrying out “ethnic cleansing.”
On September 11th the organization released a... MORE

Mississippi is set to vote this November on a patently unconstitutional personhood amendment that would criminalize abortion in their state, and ‘personhood’ advocates now strive to put a similar amendment on the ballot in Ohio in 2012. Personhood laws would not only prohibit abortion in all cases but also ban certain forms of birth control and the treatment of ectopic pregnancies by giving legal rights to zygotes. The anti-choice activists hope that Ohio will vote on it at the same time as the swing state’s closely contested presidential election. Right now Ohio is on the... MORE

Roll Call reports today that four Republican congressmen sent staffers to the Indiana Family Institute with funding from their congressional office accounts. “The April payments of $500 from Indiana GOP Reps. Larry Bucshon, Dan Burton and Todd Young and $1,000 from Rep. Todd Rokita to the Indiana Family Institute stand out because it is rare for Congressional offices to make direct payments to political organization,” Paul Singer writes, adding that “the Members also offer their time to the IFI for the training sessions.”
The Indiana Family Institute is the state... MORE

Prior to Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s The Response prayer rally, we posted video of one of the rally’s official endorsers, John Benefiel, claiming that demonic spirits ruling Washington, D.C. were literally warping the minds of politicians and elected officials. Benefiel, who leads the Heartland Apostolic Prayer Network, is not alone in this view.
David Barton, the right-wing pseudo-historian who has counseled leading Republicans like Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann and Mike Huckabee, similarly believes that demonic principalities are literally controlling parts of... MORE